Not to worry. This process is entirely “do-able” remotely, in your absence, although some documents will have to be mailed back and forth.
Sealing is available in a case where you received a withhold of adjudication, and expunction is available in a case which was dismissed, nolle pros’d, no actioned or where you were found to have been not guilty. In Florida you can only seal or expunge one eligible (non-disqualified) offense in your lifetime.
If you look at the following website you will learn everything you ever wanted to know about the sealing / expunction process:
http://www.fdle.state.fl.us/content/getdoc/c83d…
The procedure is both quite detailed and somewhat painstaking but is also far from being rocket science. You can attempt to navigate it yourself (FDLE has tried to simplify it – again I refer you to the website above) but, assuming your eligibility, any criminal defense lawyer (anywhere in Florida – this can be done remotely and does not necessarily require a local attorney, although a local attorney may or may not be less expensive) will be able to accomplish the task with greater ease and likely in a shorter time period.
That said I suspect that it doesn’t much matter where you were arrested, what you were arrested for, what the final disposition was or whether or not you sealed / expunged the record. This is 2015 and we are forehead deep into the internet age, where nothing is private, sacred or truly hidden from public scrutiny.
Sadly, sealing (and expunging) only applies to certain (not even to all) government agencies and has no effect whatsoever on private (er, extortionist) enterprise, who compile and maintain arrest information and then demand that you pay them off to remove your information from their database and public access. Worse still, after you “buy back your information”, then you can count on there being another private company lurking, somewhere, sometime, somehow, just waiting for you to pay them off as well. Its a seemingly never-ending vicious cycle.
I hope that I have been helpful in answering your question.
Call FDLE, Expunctions directly and ask them. (850) 410-7870.
If you follow the rule of the 3 “p”‘s (be patient, pleasant and polite) then you will likely be surprised at just how knowledgeable and helpful they can be.
Again, I hope that I have been helpful in answering your question.